The World of Fiction: Literary Fiction vs Genre Fiction

Someone once told me that literature is the mirror and reflection of life and I could not agree better. As an avid reader, books have always had a way of impacting my soul.

Fiction especially has always been a personal favorite. From classics to contemporary fiction, books have served different purposes to readers all around the world. From it being a means of escape, to learning new things, books are just very impactful.

But what still confuses most readers is the different categories of fiction.

Fiction is divided into two categories: literary fiction and genre fiction. The difference between these two great works of fiction have been a constant debate over time. Let’s break them down together.

Literary Fiction: You might have read some books that you could not quite define what category of fiction they fell under. If that’s the case, then those books are most likely literary fiction. Literary fiction is that work of literature that is character driven.

It focuses on stories that resembles real life experiences, it employs different themes and can be quite complicated. It is why you would read some books and feel like the characters are you or are relatable.

Literary fiction is neither here nor there, it cannot be boxed into any category, and it does not follow a particular formula to advance its plot. That being said, literary fiction can borrow from other genres and have other sub-plots.

A common example of a literary work of fiction is Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. A lot of us have read this book, different themes exists in it. There’s the issue of racism for one, migration, love, even subtle elements of Nigeria’s political tussles. We also have books like Things Fall Apart, To Kill a Mocking Bird, The Kite Runner to mention a few.

Moving on to genre fiction.

Genre fiction: is a body of literature that is all about the plot. It makes use of a certain plot to advance the story. Genre fiction follows a formula, an archetype and it does not deviate. So for a genre fiction to be what it is, it must not deviate from the plot type. If it does, the story might just be lost completely.

This category also makes use of tropes to expand the story. The characters and the stories always have certain features. But this doesn’t mean that genre fiction cannot also have complex themes or characters, as long as if follows the genre formula.

It is under genre fiction that we have sub-genres like romance, thrillers (crime and mystery), horror, sci-fi, fantasy etc. These sub-genres can also overlap each other.

A popular example I want to mention here is a romance book by Ali Hazelwood titled The Love Hypothesis. An important characteristic to note in this book will be the meeting of the main characters, everything in the plot leads to them ending up together.

We also have classic examples of Pride and Prejudice, Harry Potter series, Sherlock Holmes.

It is necessary to understand that literary fiction can borrow elements from genre fiction and still be literary fiction but genre fiction cannot.

And it’s not as if literary fiction is that perfect or serious work of fiction as it’s mostly assumed to be, it can be quite cumbersome.

I will also like to add that the bulk of African literature is literary fiction. We love to tell our own stories and write about our experiences.